GREAT NEWS! Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to Open in Japan!

One less reason for expats to go back home – Krispy Kreme will be opening in Japan this winter! Nikkei has the details:

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Lotte To Bring U.S. Doughnut Chain Krispy Kreme To Japan

TOKYO (Nikkei)–Lotte Co. plans to start opening Krispy Kreme doughnut chain stores in Japan this coming winter with turnaround specialist Revamp Corp., The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Wednesday.

As a first step, Lotte and Revamp aim to set up a joint venture around late May and to open through it one or two stores in Tokyo this year. This venture is expected to increase the number of stores to 30-50 in five years by opening locations at major train terminal buildings and shopping malls around the nation. It may also set up Krispy Kreme stores inside Lotteria hamburger chain restaurants, as well as open new Krispy Kreme-Lotteria joint stores at malls.

Lotte Group already runs Krispy Kreme franchise stores in South Korea. In Japan, it has decided to team up with Revamp to tap that firm’s extensive knowledge of the Japanese consumer market.

..

In Japan, prices will likely be set around 100 yen — about the same as or slightly less than doughnuts at Duskin Co.’s Mister Donut chain, which dominates the Japanese market with some 1,300 stores and annual sales of 125 billion yen.

I hope they decide on a location for the first stores soon so I can start apartment-hunting in the area.

This is a bold move against the good-but-could-be-much-better Mister Donut. Krispy Kreme doughnuts are great but simply do not have enough of an international presence. Once, on a trip to Japan I spotted a Filipino kid taking boxes and boxes of the things home for his family. Also, I make it a point to take every Japanese friend of mine who visits to eat at “KK” (as Mrs. Adamu calls it). Every single one of the people who tried it loved the hot fresh doughnuts. It actually ended up being the highlight of the trip for one of Mrs. Adamu’s friends (“I’ll never forget those melt-in-your-mouth doughnuts,” she said).

Indeed, Krispy Kreme’s already got a bit of a word-of-mouth reputation among Japanese expats and tourists, so perhaps that will help KK establish itself in Japan. Apparently, Japanese residing in New York have already invented a cute abbreviation for it: “Kuri Kuri” (from the Japanese Kurisupii Kuriimu).

15 thoughts on “GREAT NEWS! Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to Open in Japan!”

  1. Pingback: Krispy Kreme goes to Japan at The Marmot’s Hole

  2. Krispy Kreme may be an improvement over Mister Donuts, but I still prefer Dunkin Donuts. KK are too sweet for my taste, and I prefer the doughiness of DD to the gooiness of a KK donut. Mister Donuts, on the other hand, are a bit too dense and dry.

    Incidentally, Mister Donut has a very scant few locations in Taiwan, where it’s become the big new fad from Japan, and people literally line up to get inside. And in Manila I saw dozens of super cheap crappy Mister Donut outlets, sometimes competing with an adjacent and equally dingy Dunkin Donuts.

    But you’re forgetting the most important thing. Mister Donut may be a little bit inferior as a donut store, but it IS a donut store. BUT, Dunkin Donuts has BAGELS, and if there’s anything at all that Japan needs to improve my quality of daily life, it’s a steady and reliable supply of edible bagels.

  3. Cinnabon should be next; I’ve heard lots of Japanese people rave about how good it is, and I’m inclined to agree. Although it’s quite possible that their Tasty Industrial Goo would be classified as a hazardous product in Japan. Hmm…

  4. I think you may be right Joe. A normal sized Cinnabon is over 700 calories, and the mini ones are 300. That’s probably about as much as a Japanese lunch…

  5. There are at least two Cinnabon in Japan – one at Universal City Walk (pronounced “shitty wok” in Japanese, no fooling) in Osaka, and one at Kansai Gaidai (also Osaka). They must be on some limited franchise because they don’t seem to have an official website for the Japanese stores.

  6. Do a quick google search- here’s an item from 2001

    What American export is hot in Japan these days? Cinnamon buns—big, gooey pastries with an aroma that could send you into insulin shock. In 1999, when Atlanta-based Cinnabon opened its first outlet there, 300 people lined up to buy its buns, says Gregg Kaplan, president of the chain. Rather than try to sell cinnamon buns in Japan on its own, the company partnered with Sugakico, a successful operator of a chain of ramen-noodle restaurants. Two years later, sales are five times as high at Japanese outlets as at those in the U.S. of comparable size and location, requiring crowd-control techniques the company picked up from Disneyland. “That was the smartest move,” says Kaplan.

    Why cinnamon buns? “The chewy and glutinous texture of the dough is a little bit like Japanese sticky rice cakes,” says Minako Fujiwara, creator of a Cinnabon fan website.

    I can’t find the official page either.

  8. Man, I sure as hell didn’t see any “Disneyland-style tactics” when I visited Cinnabon. I’m sure the inevitable lines that develop whenever something is mentioned on TV in Japan make for good PR, though.

  9. and one at Kansai Gaidai (also Osaka).

    I go to Kansai Gaidai at the moment, and there isn’t one on the main campus. You might be talking about Hotani campus (the smaller one, up in the mountains) but it seems kind of unlikely. We do have a Seattle’s Best Coffee though. 🙂

  10. K, then what the hell was I thinking? I must have mistakenly remembered my ex telling me there was one there.

  12. http://www.geocities.co.jp/Foodpia/2204/shoplist-japan.html This site, last updated in 2003, says that Cinnabon closed a bunch of stores.

    http://ilovecinnabon.com/bon/storelist.htm This site, supposedly current as of July 2005, lists only 3 stores but I suspect there are more since he/she doesn’t bother to include the Universal one. Hmmm, unbelievable that a major brand wouldn’t have its own website with a regularly updated list of stores… And they never opened in Umeda… no wonder they seem to have failed so miserably!

  13. Donut Plant makes great doughnuts. The service and price is crazy. I can”t waite for kk, they will kil donut plant.

  15. I went there today. Wow, Japan is now a first world country.
    Had a glazed 150 yen. Took 4 bites and 8.7 seconds to eat.
    My advice is to waite a while, the line will kill you…3 hours.
    They have discounts for a dozen mixed…1,750. yen.

Comments are closed.